i've never had a flut shot before but was pretty much forced to get one now that i'm in nursing school and am working in hospitals. another student who was learning to give injections did a pretty bad job-- her hand was shacking back and forth wildly and she ended up stabbing me way too high, practically in my shoulder.

it was extremely sore for at least 5 days afterward, improved somewhat, then yesterday and today got way worse again and now i can barely lift my arm. i'm afraid she stabbed me in a tendon and my beloved left arm is going to have to be amputated. i really like my arms! ok, working in health care can turn you into a bit of a hypochondriac... but seriously, it is SO sore. i'm trying to get an appointment at the student health center ASAP, but i feel pretty sure they're going to say, "i dunno. let's wait and see if it gets better."

this would freak the hell out of me. if you don't know what you're doing with that needle, you'd better keep the fork away from me!!!!

i've had flu shots where it was seriously, seriously painful for a bit (my daughter had immune problems and we all got the flu shot for about 5 years in a row); had another where it swelled up like a golf ball underneath the skin. i was also a stupid fool and said "meh" and just kept on plugging and it all went away. i would say if she got you up near your shoulder, though, it missed the muscle (which is the whole point of doing it in the upper arm....) and that's why you're so sore. thinking more about it, i'm a longtime blood donor and on the rare really bad stick- even then, with a much larger needle than was used for a flu shot, the soreness usually doesn't last more than a few days, even if they're digging around to get a vein. But if they hit a tendon or the bone (gotta be really shitty phlebs for that) the pain can linger for a long time.i say you need to get a massage. and if it didn't get intramuscular, does that mean it was a basically wasted injection?

The worst vaccine shot I ever got left me in so much pain the next day I had to miss class, and like you I couldn't lift my arm past my waist. What have you taken for it? Extra-strength Tylenol at the minimum recommended intervals got me back in working order within a few days.

You shouldn't be that sore for so long, mention it to someone and get it checked out.

I got the swine flu shot here (uk) last year and it just gave me mild soreness and numbness for about 4 days. I got the combination shot on Monday and I only feel it when I roll on it during the night and even then it's not sore.

I'm supposed to be getting my flu shot today and was told that some people are experiencing severe soreness at the vaccine site for a week or two. They said something about this year's vaccine being 4 strains of virus in one shot. I'm not sure how that differs from past years.

so, i have bursitis. my shoulder joint is inflamed because, well, it was accidentally stabbed with a needle. i'm going to be in pretty bad pain for some unknown number of months and there's nothing i can do about it besides taking NSAIDS.

this was obviously a freak occurrence and has nothing to do with the contents of the flu shot, so i wouldn't be afraid to get this shot in particular. the moral of the story for me personally is that i'm just going to give myself immunizations in the future because now i trust no one. but you probably won't be allowed to do that if you're not a health care provider... don't worry, you'll all be fine, i'm just unlucky.

Ohhh you guys. I hope you know that the flu shot can make vegans especially sick. It can have eggs in it. I wondered why my insides felt like such crepe afterward (and for DAYS). I found it had eggs in it a couple of days after it happened. Ugh.

Ohhh you guys. I hope you know that the flu shot can make vegans especially sick. It can have eggs in it. I wondered why my insides felt like such crepe afterward (and for DAYS). I found it had eggs in it a couple of days after it happened. Ugh.

Ohhh you guys. I hope you know that the flu shot can make vegans especially sick. It can have eggs in it. I wondered why my insides felt like such crepe afterward (and for DAYS). I found it had eggs in it a couple of days after it happened. Ugh.

Ohhh you guys. I hope you know that the flu shot can make vegans especially sick. It can have eggs in it. I wondered why my insides felt like such crepe afterward (and for DAYS). I found it had eggs in it a couple of days after it happened. Ugh.

Possibly. I went back to my doctor to verify that mine, in fact, had egg protein in it. And that's just forking gross.

You've probably ingested worse by walking into public toilets.

People dying from flu is grosser.

There is no argument here. I'm sure I have. My point was that it did have egg protein in it and since I am vegan, I'M choosing to avoid it from now on. Other people can most definitely do what they want. You don't need to turn this into a "right" or "wrong" issue. No need.

Possibly. I went back to my doctor to verify that mine, in fact, had egg protein in it. And that's just forking gross.

You've probably ingested worse by walking into public toilets.

People dying from flu is grosser.

There is no argument here. I'm sure I have. My point was that it did have egg protein in it and since I am vegan, I'M choosing to avoid it from now on. Other people can most definitely do what they want. You don't need to turn this into a "right" or "wrong" issue. No need.

I don't think anybody here has a problem with you choosing to avoid it -- I just don't think it is helpful to spread the misinformation that vegans are more likely to get sick from the flu shot due to the fact that it has egg protein in it. Besides, the information isn't exactly hidden. I've gotten it for three or four years now and each time I've had to sign something saying that I didn't have an egg allergy.

A flu epidemic is a bad situation for everybody. I don't get vaccinated to keep myself from getting the flu -- I get it so that my eldery neighbor and my little sister with breathing problems and my pregnant co-worker won't get the flu from me. While getting a flu vaccine is an individual choice, I'd hate to see vegans not getting the shot because they think the eggs will make them sick.

_________________Empathy, he once had decided, must be limited to herbivores or anyhow omnivores who could depart from a meat diet.--Philip K. Dick

I don't think anybody here has a problem with you choosing to avoid it -- I just don't think it is helpful to spread the misinformation that vegans are more likely to get sick from the flu shot due to the fact that it has egg protein in it. Besides, the information isn't exactly hidden. I've gotten it for three or four years now and each time I've had to sign something saying that I didn't have an egg allergy.

A flu epidemic is a bad situation for everybody. I don't get vaccinated to keep myself from getting the flu -- I get it so that my eldery neighbor and my little sister with breathing problems and my pregnant co-worker won't get the flu from me. While getting a flu vaccine is an individual choice, I'd hate to see vegans not getting the shot because they think the eggs will make them sick.[/quote]

But it wasn't misinformation? And if you need the source, I'll gladly give it to you (my doc). I don't just spew random diddly about anything unless I know what I'm talking about to an extent.And you did allude to it being wrong to avoid the shot altogether, with the comment "People dying from the flu is..."I respect you taking the shot for the reasons you did 100% and I'm not saying you're wrong for doing it (in fact, I never said that). But it CAN have egg protein in it, and unfortunately mine did. And if one follows the logical thought process (or my personal body process) of "oh hey. Why do I feel like hurling my guts and I'm getting a fever and I'm dying a day after getting this shot?" It might be the same exact reason I actually hurled my guts when there was egg in something I ate and I never, repeat, NEVER had an adverse reaction to egg consumption in all of my life until I went vegan and accidentally ate egg.

Is there not that nasal thing anyway that shoots the flu vaccine up your nose? I don't know anything about that method, but it might be not so invasive and hurty?

Is there not that nasal thing anyway that shoots the flu vaccine up your nose? I don't know anything about that method, but it might be not so invasive and hurty?

It's just differently invasive. That method uses live, weakened virus. It can give you a sore throat, runny nose, cough, basically mild flu symptoms (but not actually flu). Anyone elderly or not entirely healthy in some way can't take it. (Regular flu shots can give people a slight fever and aches.)

There's a much simpler possible explanation for that. Your immune system's response to the vaccine, i.e. the very thing it was supposed to elicit (fever is a well documented side effect, see e.g. http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2334/10/71). So, unless you have a credible source explaining why people who don't eat eggs should have a particularly severe reaction to it, I'm going to agree with the people who saw this as spreading misinformation about a matter of public health.

I don't think anybody here has a problem with you choosing to avoid it -- I just don't think it is helpful to spread the misinformation that vegans are more likely to get sick from the flu shot due to the fact that it has egg protein in it. Besides, the information isn't exactly hidden. I've gotten it for three or four years now and each time I've had to sign something saying that I didn't have an egg allergy.

A flu epidemic is a bad situation for everybody. I don't get vaccinated to keep myself from getting the flu -- I get it so that my eldery neighbor and my little sister with breathing problems and my pregnant co-worker won't get the flu from me. While getting a flu vaccine is an individual choice, I'd hate to see vegans not getting the shot because they think the eggs will make them sick.[/quote]

But it wasn't misinformation? And if you need the source, I'll gladly give it to you (my doc). I don't just spew random diddly about anything unless I know what I'm talking about to an extent.And you did allude to it being wrong to avoid the shot altogether, with the comment "People dying from the flu is..."I respect you taking the shot for the reasons you did 100% and I'm not saying you're wrong for doing it (in fact, I never said that). But it CAN have egg protein in it, and unfortunately mine did. And if one follows the logical thought process (or my personal body process) of "oh hey. Why do I feel like hurling my guts and I'm getting a fever and I'm dying a day after getting this shot?" It might be the same exact reason I actually hurled my guts when there was egg in something I ate and I never, repeat, NEVER had an adverse reaction to egg consumption in all of my life until I went vegan and accidentally ate egg.

Is there not that nasal thing anyway that shoots the flu vaccine up your nose? I don't know anything about that method, but it might be not so invasive and hurty?[/quote]

I was not the person who referenced people dying from the flu -- that was Fezza. You said it was "gross" because of egg protein and Fezza said dying of the flu was "grosser." Which I happen to agree with 100%. Your response to the flu shot was most likely (as somebody else has pointed out) an immune response to the vaccination, not the egg in which it was grown. Negative responses to the flu vaccine are common (and still safer than actually getting the flu). If somebody doesn't want to get a flu vaccination because it isn't compatible with their own veganism, I am not going to say anything about that. But if somebody is spreading misinformation (like how avoiding eggs as a vegan can lead to an egg allergy which would make somebody have a bad response to the flu vaccine), I am going to respond to that. No vegan should avoid the flu vaccine because they feel as if the egg will make them sick (unless that vegan also happens to have an allergy to eggs).

_________________Empathy, he once had decided, must be limited to herbivores or anyhow omnivores who could depart from a meat diet.--Philip K. Dick

Both my parents get bad stomach problems after the flu shot, so much so my mum has refused to get it since, they both eat eggs without any problems. I've been vegan 5/6 years, have a bolloxy immune system had the swine flu shot last year without problems, got the combination shot this year without any problems.

I was deliberately not coming back to this thread because it reeked of dramavegan attitude but since y'all have bumped it...

" But if somebody is spreading misinformation (like how avoiding eggs as a vegan can lead to an egg allergy which would make somebody have a bad response to the flu vaccine), I am going to respond to that. "

We're going to have to agree to disagree on that one. It's not "spreading misinformation", but I have a feeling you're going to keep calling it that. I'm out with the others on this one! This is silly.